


A Memory

by BlueColoredDreams



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Dancing, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 11:37:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12934455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueColoredDreams/pseuds/BlueColoredDreams
Summary: Lucretia only knows one dance.





	A Memory

**Author's Note:**

> Remember/forget
> 
> I got unexpectedly sick as a damn dog, so I won’t be able to complete the week on time, which is a sad time. Apologies for the formatting.

Lucretia sways to the melody of the music, watching with pride as Lup out fiddles each bard on stage.

The fair is loud, heavy with the smell of frying food and drinks and warm earth. As the sun sets, strings of lights begin to flicker on, and still the music continues; the contest is long and highly contested each year, their host told them. Everyone in the area trains year-long, and all are beloved by the crowd: each musician draws cheers just as loud as the one before, and they circle again and again, playing each other and matching melodies.

She claps her hands to the beat that Lup stomps out as she plays, laughing as the crowd swirls around the festival grounds, a blur of people.

Magnus comes up to her, holding two bottles of beading cider, looking more at home in his half-open button down and scruffy jeans than she ever thought he would. He and Barry both have taken to this plane more than any of them, slow and warm and sleepily rural, much like their respective hometowns.

Barry, they knew was from a small town on their home plane. But Magnus always talked about the city, the capital where the IPRE was centered, of bar fights and bouncer jobs and sleeping through class. None of them, save Davenport, had known that he’d grown up in a tiny farming town, far from the bars and clubs and action that he’d so favored when they’d met.

She takes it with a soft murmur of thanks, relishing the cool in the warm air.

“I think I said it before, but, you look really nice,” Magnus says, raising his bottle of cider to tap hers.

She smiles, the compliment glowing softly in her breast. She has no greater pleasure than the fact that even the simplest things keep her feeling warm and fluttery with Magnus despite the years.

“You like this simple look a lot, huh?” she teases, drying the dampness of her hand on her long cotton skirt.

“That’s me. Simple man, simple pleasures,” he laughs. “C’mon, Luc, let’s dance.”

“I don’t know any,” she admits, laughing gently at the look on his face. “What!”

“We dance all the time,” he complains.

“Not like, really, we’re just swaying.”

“We’re dancing,” Magnus says, plucking her cider from her hands. He sets them down at a table littered with empty and abandoned bottles, and then takes both of her hands. “I’ll teach you one.”

“You know how to dance?”

“It was real popular in my hometown, way back when,” Magnus says. “Follow me.”

“You came from a small town, right?”

“Country boy, haven’t you heard?” he laughs, guiding her two steps forward, doing a shuffle after the second. “It’s slow, slow, then two quicks.” 

“Magnus!” she laughs in delight as he rocks her as they step. 

He laughs, pressing his nose to hers. “Wasn’t much to do out there other than fight and go out to dance if you wanted to pick up anybody.” 

She continues to giggle, clinging to his arm as he swings them around. “Magnus, you’ve been holding out for decades!” 

“So have you; you’re a natural,” he retorts. “Okay step back and hold your arms straight and follow—”

“Like this?” she asks, stepping back.   
Magnus spins her with his left hand, flipping their grasp deftly. He gently pulls her back flush to him. “This is called the sweetheart, by the way,” he says, nuzzling her cheek. 

Lucretia leans back into him, arms crossed against her waist. “Is it? Now what?” 

“Next, we spin,” he says in her ear. “Spin out, then step back and spin, and we clap hands as we come around.” 

“What? Are you sure?” 

“Of course!” 

She shrieks in delight as he spins her out of his grasp. She watches for a second as he turns on his heel, then follows, meeting his palm with her own. 

“Now counter clockwise,” he calls, and she laughs, mimicking the earlier spin. 

He holds her hands and guides her back into the two-step from earlier, shoulders heaving with laughter. “You didn’t immediately spin!” 

“It sounded silly!” 

They both laugh until they’re sore, Magnus teaching her bits and pieces until they’ve assembled the full dance. They don’t manage it by the time the contest ends, with Lup the obvious winner, but the prize going to the hometown darling. Once the upset is complete, the band starts back up, and Magnus leads her in a spin that has her stumbling into him. 

He dips her and she shrieks, laughing as he picks her back up.

Secretly, it’s one of her most cherished memories of them both: dancing until their feet are sore, and stumbling off to drink, then spinning back until the fair winds down and the sun begins to rise. 

They dance again, later, in different planes, to different music, but this, the first time, is something special.

* * *

Lucretia checks herself once last time in the glass of a bakery window. Finding nothing preventing her from slipping into the town square unnoticed, she grips her hands together, pressing them tightly to her breast.

Her Disguise Self is impeccable, transforming her from a woman in her mid-forties to a young woman, blonde and freckled with green eyes.

Nothing like herself. Not that she’d be recognized as herself, but it would be too much if she… One day, he’ll know, she hopes. One day, he’ll know who she is, and…

She slips into the throng, music loud and joyous, people whooping and cheering as they dance and drink.

He’s somewhere in this crowd, somewhere in the festivities centered on him and his revolution and his life—and he does not know she is here. He will never know. 

He must never know. But she can’t bear to stay away. 

Someone grabs her hands and swings her into a dance, and she laughs, caught up in the joy of these people who love him as much as she does, who love who he loves, who love this town. She’s swung from partner to partner, caught in a dance that spans the entire square of Raven’s Roost, and despite her own sorrow, she finds herself laughing.

She spins to the next partner, and then falters before she even opens her eyes. The hand that’s grasped hers is rough and familiar, and when she looks up, she meets Magnus’ smiling gaze.

He laughs and picks his hands up to twist her back, then spins her. She knows this dance as intimately as she knows Magnus, and though he doesn’t remember her, he remembers the simple steps he taught her, learned on a world they will never inhabit again.

“You’re good at this one,” he laughs over the music. 

She smiles despite herself, fighting back the tremble in her voice. 

“It’s the only one I know,” she half-shouts over the music. She can feel the metal of his ring against her fingers, the only foreign thing in the clasp of hands that feels like home.

“Same here! Tried to teach Julia, but she’s all left feet! It’s great!”

He grins, open and ecstatic, and she can’t bring herself to regret what she’s done for one second. It hurts to see him so happy without her, but she’d been so afraid that he would never smile again those last few months.

“Congratulations,” she says, squeezing his hands as the tempo changes. She steps back and turns to her next partner and lets the music carry her away from him.


End file.
